Top 10 movies that deserve a tech Oscar

THE BIGGEST NIGHT OF THE YEAR in Hollywood has arrived, and the stars of the screen are hurrying to the Oscars ceremony to find out who's in favour with the judges this year - or whose film studio has the biggest schmoozing budget.

To mark the ceremony, we decided to put together our list of films that we think deserve an Oscar for being the best technology movies of all time. So we scoured the movie archives and our favourite cinema moments for those films that not only have technology at their heart, but are also excellent, entertaining or just plain quirky examples of the film-makers' art.

10. Weird ScienceWeird Science was just that - plain weird. This 1980s comedy can perhaps be seen as a kind of modern era version of Frankenstein, with the mad scientist role replaced by a pair of callow youths intent on creating themselves the ultimate virtual girlfriend on their home computer.

Although pre-dating the web age, Weird Science foreshadows today’s cyber security issues as the protagonists hack into a US government computer system in order to boost the processing power at their disposal. Just as they hit execute on their simulation, a lightning strike on the house bizarrely causes it to be incarnated in the form of actress and model Kelly LeBrock, with hilarious consequences.

The rest of the film descends into a comedy farce, but the film is notable for presaging virtual simulations and cloud computing through the use of online computer resources to meet their needs.

Of course, the most memorable part is the bizarre scene in which the two youths sit with bras on their heads while they prepare to simulate their fantasy girlfriend on a primitive Memotech MTX512 home computer.